Tag Archives: Ebooks

It’s such a great idea! Use your tablet to check out digital ebooks for a limited number of days (typically 14). But accessing the digital library, figuring out which format of book your table can read, download some software on your computer, setup an Adobe Digital ID, then load and app on your tablet that can read the file, move the library book’s file from your computer to your tablet….

Are you kidding me? I thought this was supposed to be easy. I have a Bachelor Degree in Computers for the love of God. If I’m having trouble doing this, I bet there are whole lot of people out there that have given up long before they set up everything just right to make this work for them.

Here’s how to get started: ON YOUR COMPUTER (not your tablet): Go to the website for your local library (hopefully this is on your library card). Your library’s website (hopefully) has links to electronic books mixed in with regular books or it may have a link to “Downloadable” or “Electronic Media.” You will need to be able to login to your library account and (at least for my local library) it links to a Digital library for my state, Indiana (Indiana Digital Media) which is part of Overdrive.com. You may be required to login in to the digital library site using the same login (probably the account number on your library card) and password as your local library’s site. From there you can put books on hold that you want to download in the future, or check them out now if available. Once you select the books you want, then “checkout.” You will need to download the files for the books you have chosen. I like to save these in My Documents > My eBooks folder. Here’s a link to Overdrive’s Help section.

Here’s where I think the system sucks, it didn’t allow me to download this straight to my tablet. I had to go to my computer, download & install Adobe Digital Editions and set up an Adobe ID (necessary if you want to put library book on your tablet to read it, or share the book between your computer and any other device). You can read more about setting up Adobe Digital Editions from this help page.

If you’ve made it to this point, then follow this advice I found in a forum to complete the rest of the steps.

Normally Adobe Digital Editions would be installed on a computer and then the downloaded books transferred from your computer to tablet. If your library uses the overdrive service, your book may be available in the overdrive media console from overdrive.com. It only supports epub ebooks though, not epdf. You will also need a compatible ebook reader app on the tablet. Do you have Aldikos or something installed?

From Aldiko support: (I’m sure many other file managers besides ASTRO will work too)

For importing library books into Aldiko app, please try to follow these steps:
(1) Go to your local public library’s website on your computer, select any eBook in Adobe ePub or Adobe PDF format, check out and then download the eBooks files. Normally, libraries will offer you an acsm file for each eBook, please make sure this.
(2) Put the acsm file in either the SD card or internal memory of your device, depending on the model of device you are using.
(3) Download and install a file manager app called “ASTRO” from the Android market. Use the file manager app to locate the acsm file.
(4) Tap on the acsm file in the file manager app. If you have verified your device with an Adobe ID already, the eBook will be automatically downloaded and imported into your bookshelf in Aldiko. If you haven’t verified your device with an Adobe ID before before, you should see a pop-up window which asks you to authorize your device with an Adobe ID. After authorization, the eBook will be automatically downloaded and imported into your bookshelf in Aldiko.
You don’t need to use Adobe Digital Editions (ADE).

Personally, I was able to get the Aldiko app from the Amazon App store much easier than from the Android Market. I never found the ASTRO app, but any file manager should work.

Here are some useful Questions & Answers from Adobe Help:

Transferring items between computers

If you have authorized your computer, Adobe Digital Editions does not “lock” your eBooks and other digital publications to that computer — they are assigned to you through your Adobe ID. This means that you can transfer library items to up to six computers and six supported mobile devices.

Before you can transfer items between computers, you must authorize both computers with your Adobe ID.

Note: Bookmarks are not copied when items are transferred to another computer.

To transfer a library item to another authorized computer:

On the computer you’re transferring from, locate and open the My Digital Editions folder, located inside the My Documents folder.

Choose the EPUB or PDF files that correspond to the eBook titles you want to transfer.

Copy the selected files to portable media such as a flash drive, or email the files to the target computer.

On the target computer, copy the EPUB or PDF files into the My Documents folder within the My Documents folder.

Open Adobe Digital Editions on the target computer. Choose Library > Add Item, and then navigate to the My Digital Editions folder and select the new files to bring into the library.

Transferring items to a supported eReader

Adobe Digital Editions allows you to transfer items from your library to a supported eReader device.

Connect the supported eReader device to your computer and launch Digital Editions. Digital Editions automatically detects the presence of your device and offers to authorize it with your Adobe ID. If you have not authorized Digital Editions with your computer, you will need to complete that first (Digital Editions guides you through that process: View the Activation and Authorization topic). Both Digital Editions and the device must be authorized to be able to transfer protected content to and from the device. Unprotected content can be transferred to and from the device without authorizing either the device or Digital Editions, but Adobe strongly advises authorizing Digital Editions as it gives you content portability for your protected books, whether on Digital Editions or the supported device.

After authorization, the device appears as a new bookshelf in your library. You can transfer items to and from the device’s bookshelf just as you do with other bookshelves in your library. You can read books that are on your device or your own computer. You can even read books off a friend’s device (though you cannot transfer books from that device to your computer or vice versa).

Important: Do not disconnect the device while transferring library items to or from your computer.